June 17th, 2015 at the OU, Hawley Crescent, London: This was a joint event, run by Jonathan Hughes, set up by the Association for Education and Ageing and the British Society of Gerontology. In the background there was a working suggestion that the BSG should establish a special interest group on education. Judging from the two presentations in the morning this might need at least two strands: the first, reflecting Paul Nash’s account of the poor state of investment and organisation in the UK, would concern gerontological education; the second, following from Bernhardt Schmidt-Hertha, would concern educational gerontology. Thus, professionals working with older people should have a broader understanding of later life, while older learners, whether inside or outside the job market, need better support and better funded opportunities. The two strands have something in common, and at some stage very similar institutional and political barriers will need to be confronted. But, however interrelated the two strands may be, they are for the most part operationally distinct and they raise different questions and practical challenges. There was a lot of history in the room. People like Alexandra Withnall and Anne Jamieson, for whom these matters have been lifelong professional concerns, sat alongside the campaigners of the Ransackers Association, representatives of the Third Age Trust, and others who are currently carrying out topical research. In addition, two or three older participants had come out of interest and curiosity and because they have been involved in the BSG’s recent Kilburn Debates. In the afternoon we were ably dragooned by Jonathan Hughes into a set of working groups to consider five questions largely related to the second strand of the day’s concerns:·What research considerations do we have in the field of learning in later life?·What kind of research could best meet these research considerations?·What are the implications of international research projects?·What can large scale or experimental studies contribute?·What potential is there for concerted action to ensure progress in this research field? The bulk of the report backs, assembled on flip-charts, focused on these questions. Jo Walker fed back from my table. It was a very research-focused agenda. I have only the notes of the things that interested me. Roughly speaking these focused on:·Understanding and describing both the need for ongoing formal education and its relationship to everyday learning and lifelong ‘expertise’.·A better, more widely shared, understanding of the historical picture – why we are where we currently seem to be; what social factors make the position different from the early 90s, and so on.·The need for a better understanding of where ‘learning’ takes place for older people: I suggested in-depth case studies of contrasted neighbourhoods.·Some sort of discussion (perhaps within the AEA) about the relationship between the U3A, WEA and others, Ransackers and the higher education colleges, and any other such bodies. Jonathan’s final set of questions led more directly into our concluding exchanges. ·Is a SIG in BSG the right place to achieve this progress and make significant contributions to research?·What are the alternatives and how do they take into account existing networks?·Is a new kind of network needed, and how should it differ from other networks (AEA, ELOA)?·What might be its characteristics – should it be national or international, disciplinary or interdisciplinary, a network of researchers or a network of researchers and practitioners? My thoughts nearly a month later are roughly these. The first strand – the decline in gerontological education – needs urgent attention. Ideally, it should be better integrated within a policy favouring lifelong learning, but that is probably not essential to putting the situation right. It is just an absurdity that professional education has become so far detached from the realities of an ageing population, and that the high expectations of thirty years ago have not been realised. Moreover, it is the broader model of gerontology education we need in the UK. The narrower, psychologically-focused interpretation that Bernhardt identified in Germany would be much less appropriate. The second strand needs a shift of focus. Here the trend is in the opposite direction, and, has been, as the U3A has shown, driven by older people’s involvement within education in a rather more self-sufficient direction than critical gerontologists like Frank Glendinning anticipated. However, despite what appears to be an expansion, this has probably meant (with the dramatic decline in AEA funding over fifteen years or so) that inequality in terms of access has widened. U3A groups are often diverse in a variety of ways, but they rarely function well in ‘disadvantaged’ neighbourhoods. Research I think needs to focus more on what it is that interests older people about formal education and why they get involved in it. This would be a move in the direction of more sociologically rather than educationally-driven studies. There are important cohort effects. One or two people present had left school at 14 and were educated before the Butler Education Act was passed and the 11plus introduced. They represent a classic instance of disadvantage across the life-course, albeit a declining proportion of the population. Then, anyone roughly between the ages of 50 and 80 in the UK will have taken the 11plus: this perpetuated the earlier class distinctions but gave them a new intra-class competitive twist. What has been its impact on attitudes to learning and education in later life? Anecdotally, an unresolved anger divides baby-boomers, in particular, over this issue and may have implications for the design of learning opportunities and course content. Two other structural factors seem important in this debate. The first, following Higgs and Gilleard to some extent, has been the impact of a consumer society. This has altered the aspirations and expectations of older people, and responding to these will involve working in ways not anticipated thirty years ago. Learning for its own sake – as distinct from the desire to ‘participate’ – has taken a step back. The second concerns the organisation of later-life learning and the extent to which it should be intergenerational – the point of overlap between the strands of this meeting. And it is also the point where the more educationally-focused issues that arise when groups of people of very different ages are studying alongside each other come into their own. The scope for competitive discomfort is often underestimated, the scope for cooperative support often exaggerated. My own theme - the relationship between conversation and action in education, and its implications for life-long learning - harks back to the critical gerontology tradition. Whether it is focused on community involvement, or strengthening institutions, older people seem increasingly called on to provide civic leadership, and undertake new levels of responsibility both for our own social defence and for that of others. How to do this without being co-opted to the neoliberal agenda of making things worse to benefit the rich and their allies represents the single biggest challenge. Processes of reflection, practices of resilience in the service of what Blackwell and Seabrook called a ‘conserving radicalism’ need to be close to the heart of purposive later-life education. A SIG is a good idea, but a tall order. I wonder if ILC-UK and the Institute for Education have important contributions to make here, alongside the bodies already named?

This event brought together a wide range of organisations including The Ransackers Association, Kilburn Older Voices Exchange, the British Society of Gerontology, The Open University and the Camden Intergenerational Network.

The morning session focused on addressing the question, “Do we have to grow up to grow old?” This was led by Dr John Miles , who had organised the day , with presenters Dr Liesbeth de Block, Emily Momoh and Denise Wilkinson OBE. I led the afternoon session, “Teaching older student – does age matter?” representing both the OU and the Association for Education and Ageing.

It had been hoped that it would be possible to involve local sixth form sociology students who , apparently, study the life course. Unfortunately this did not happen as the school involved felt the demands of the curriculum left insufficient room for this ‘day out’. The sessions and the discussions throughout the day were excellent but I think the presence of school students would have added an invaluable dynamic. Liesbeth de Block’s presentation outlined media research done with school age children in Kenya. In particular she focused on a soap opera –Makutano Juniors - designed to address the high dropout rate between primary and secondary school. This is a result of a number of factors including the start of fees and the use of English as the main medium for teaching. The soap is aimed at 10-14 year olds and this intention is that it sho0uld be viewed with family members. It is supposed to be viewed with family members. It is a magazine programme with items on numeracy, literacy, art, storytelling as well as a spin off from Makutano Junction –a an adult soap opera very popular in Kenya The story lines in this spin off are very strong and highlight issues of rights, responsibilities and respect as far as children are concerned. Liesbeth was asked to conduct research into the effects of this programme. She found that small detail often had powerful effects, for example how characters dressed. She also found that children were intrigued about being asked about their views but that it was difficult to get them to say what they actually thought Parents often felt that the programme should act as a teaching machine although many acknowledge that it did help them raise difficult issues (such as sex education) with their children. Teachers, we were told, often felt threatened by the programme. Many saw it as a threat to their status and a challenge to their expertise although a few did recognise as a potentially valuable resource in a context were teaching resources are scarce. Liesbeth’s presentation helped the participants consider the intergeneration aspect of the day and, to an extent, helped redress the lack of younger people in the audience. The presentations highlighting of the three words (rights, responsibilities and respect) helped remind us that these apply to everyone (of whatever age). The focus on the notion that ageing is not just about old age was reinforced by Emily Momoh’s presentation about the Forgiveness Project. We were shown excerpts from a DVD “Unprovoked” which is a dramatised version of the true story of the murder of a teenage girl at a party in London. This video was used to encourage us to this about the impact of the choices that people make and it also raised, in a very powerful way, issues about jealousy and loyalty and the issues that young people have with families, especially broken families. The final presentation of the morning was by Denise Wilkinson who outlined her involvement with ‘Gran Mentors’ and with Grand Parents Plus. Gran Mentors is an example of older people supporting younger people who have been ’in trouble’ or who have been in care. So far, is seems to work better with this second group and it clearly demonstrates the appetite of older people to open up to and support younger people. The same applies to the amount of caring of children done by grandparents which is important in the UK with its very high rates of child care costs. The three sessions helped make the case that intergenerational contacts are vital in breaking down the stereotypes that different generations might have about each other and how these stereotypes can get in the way of seeing people as individuals. It probably impossible for me to give an objective accounts of my own workshop. I thoroughly enjoyed doing it and the participants were engaged and joined in with a lively discussion on the topic of whether age matters in relation to teaching older students. I structured the workshop by getting people to identify as either older students who thought age matters, older students who though age did not matter, teachers who though age matters and teachers who thought age did not matter. This resulted in four groups who each considered why they thought age did, or did not matter. The two teaching groups were then asked to produce some teaching while the older student groups were asked to say what they would look for in this teaching. I asked them to think about a mini-course on the Putney Debates of 1647 (the notion of the Kilburn debates is a reference to these debates at the end of the English Civil War when the extension of the franchise was discussed). As a focus this worked very well –to the extent that people from the Ransackers thought they should do a course on this topic. So what conclusions did we reach? That’s quite a difficult one as sometimes the different groups seemed to use very similar arguments about the need to design learning with particular individuals in mind as to say both that age does matter and that age does not matter. There was a strong, if contested, feeling that it was not always comfortable for older people to learn alongside younger people –but this was hotly contested too. I thought it was remarkable that no one said that age matters because old people are different in some obvious way –for example there was no mention of older people finding it difficult to remember information. Great play was made of the fact that age can bring potentially useful experience and accumulated knowledge –although I did point out that for some if can reinforce negative or narrow views. We probably didn’t anticipate that there would be any easy answers and perhaps it’s sufficiently valuable to highlight that there are no simple answers. Dr Jonathan Hughes 17th May 2015

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We are researchers in gerontology and ageing across the life course, based at The Open University, UK, but blogging as individuals. The views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of The Open University. The University takes no responsibility for any material on these pages.